Arun gas restart in June: Minister

Arun gas restart in June: Minister

VIENNA (Reuters): Indonesia hopes to reopen gas fields in the
rebellious Aceh province "sometime" in June and resume valuable
exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Energy Minister Purnomo
Yusgiantoro said on Tuesday.

Yusgiantoro said security was still the main issue for the
fields' closure but about 24 soldiers were guarding installations
at the fields and the key PT Arun NGL gas plant on the island of
Sumatra.

"Arun is still shut in but we are preparing to reopen sometime
this month. We are hoping to be ready from a security standpoint
and for infrastructure and alignment of instrumentation,"
Yusgiantoro told Reuters. The minister was attending an OPEC
meeting in the Austrian capital.

Exxon Mobil Indonesia -- a unit of U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp
-- closed three gas fields in March, halting output at the Aceh
LNG plant and forcing utilities in Japan and South Korea to seek
alternative supplies.

Exxon attributed the closure to the cumulative effect of dozen
of security incidents over the past two years in the province,
where separatist rebels have been seeking independence for
decades.

Exxon Mobil is Indonesia's second-largest LNG producer with
total output of 1.6 billion cubic feet per day. In mid-May it
said it would send in a security mission to the province to
investigate reopening the fields.

Indonesia is the world's biggest LNG exporter and its economy
relies heavily on oil and gas exports.

Yusgiantoro said he did not expect any long-term negative
impact from the supply outage, despite its leading customers
having to scramble for supplies elsewhere.

"We are not worried by people being put off from buying from
us or from investing in Indonesia because LNG demand is strong
and growing from places like China and India," he said.